The current generation of consoles do a lot of things right, from great games to apps to social features. Now that we’re a few years into the hardware cycle, many of the wrinkles have been ironed out of the user experience – but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Last week, we ran through 10 things that still annoy us on Xbox One, but the PlayStation 4 isn’t perfect, either.

This list covers our major frustrations that come with using Sony’s hardware and hits points across all areas, from interface to hardware to PSN. Of course, we still enjoy our PS4s, but we’d enjoy them more if we didn’t have to put up with some of this nonsense.

This week we spent time with the often forgotten Genesis and Super Nintendo competitor, the TurboGrafx-16.

The console, developed in cooperation by NEC and Hudson Soft, hit the 16-bit technical mark and released the same year as the Genesis and two years before the Super Nintendo.

It's an unconventional episode as we jump between a handful of TurboGrafx-16 games as opposed to doing longer segments dedicated to two games. Despite grabbing a random assortment of TurboGrafx-16 games from our vault, not paying particular attention to their genre or titles, every game we played had some kind of terrifying, horrific element. Even the licensed Darkwing Duck game we played managed to offer up hellish creatures in an underground level.

For 20 years, we've lived under alien rule. They've invaded our cities, taken over our governments, and they're exploiting our people. Overthrowing this ruthless hegemony won't be easy, but we've complied a quick list of the most important battle tactics that every commander should know before they join XCOM. If you want to survive XCOM 2's ruthless onslaught, keep these tips in mind.

Be Prepared To DieThis first tip is more of a mindset than a trick. XCOM is a challenging game, but it's designed around the idea that you're not going to walk through each mission unscathed. Many of your soldiers will get gravely wounded, and some of them (okay, many of them) will die. Part of the fun of XCOM games is embracing the mentality that everything is going to go to hell, and you're going to have to manage the fallout. However, pulling off a successful mission even when everything feels stacked against you feels amazing.

A few days ago we announced that TT Games' return to Star Wars was our next cover-story game. Today, we're showing off some new and exclusive screens from the game, highlighting new and familiar faces (and places).

Take a look at the gallery for some shots from the upcoming game. You'll recognize locations including Jakku and Starkiller Base, along with heroes Rey, Finn, Han Solo, BB-8 and Chewbacca. You might notice a few moments from The Return of the Jedi in there, too. While the game features levels based on The Force Awakens and also some extra missions that canonically expand on the new movie's fiction, TT Fusion is also going back to Jedi in a special mission that features some of that film's biggest sequences.

As I wrote in the 12-page cover story, one of the most striking things about revisiting events from Return of the Jedi is seeing just how far TT Games' has come over the years. The battle against Emperor Palpatine was fairly boring in the original game, but it definitely gets its due in the new one.

X-COM didn’t change the world. In fact, even if you were a gamer throughout the early ‘90s, it’s possible the game flew under your radar. However, this science fiction strategy title quickly developed a cult following and is widely considered one of the best turn-based strategy titles of its era. With 2K Games’ upcoming series reboot, this is the perfect time to look back at this innovative game that almost didn’t see the light of day.

[This article originally appeared in issue 224 of Game Informer.]

The Man From NowhereJulian Gollop has always been a nomad. Born in Ludhiana, India, his family moved to Yorkshire, England, when he was two – then spent a few years in Sweden before moving back to Britain. The young Julian spent several years in transition as his family moved around a number of small towns surrounding London. One of the few constants during his childhood was his love for games. “My dad was really keen on card and board games,” Gollop says. “So we played a lot of games as a family, especially at Christmas.”

One of the most convenient innovations that Firaxis implemented in XCOM 2 is the character pool. Using this feature, you can create characters, bundle them into themed sets, and share them with friends.

Using the character pool, the game will randomly insert your characters as recruited or rescued soldiers, engineers and scientists, or VIPs to assassinate or extract.

To get you started, we created 10 iconic game characters you can import. Each of them has their own biography, and you can tell the game how you want them to show up while you’re playing. Download the file here.

A title's release day feels like a definitive moment. Development is finished and the public can experience the creators' vision. But that's more and more not the case as post-launch patches, DLC, the games-as-service model, and free updates continue to define a game after it comes out. Extending the experience – especially when it's free – is nothing to complain about, but what are we to think when the initial, release-day content itself was lacking from the start? We're seeing cases where games attempt to right launch-day wrongs by adding content later that arguably should have been there in the first place, a practice I hope doesn't continue.

To point out just a pair of examples: Star Wars Battlefront came out with 13 maps spread over four locations, leaving gamers wanting more. This foundation is being built up upon throughout this year, with two additional planets, maps, heroes, and more features. Considering the title's gameplay isn't super deep, had the maps shipped with the game to begin with it would have at least given players more to chew on instead of them quickly growing tired of the same locations.

I admire the community's tenacity when it comes to blogging! This week we've a good mix of blogs, reviews, and a community challenge response about a dope room.

Community Blogs For January 28 – February 3:

My Top 5 Most Disappointing Games of 2015 Jon_G caught my eye with a Chibi Robo image. Well, an image of what is a shameful attempt at a Chibi Robo game. I want to scrub floors, fellow community members. I want to have to recharge with my handy dandy plug. Sigh...oh well. What I like most about this list is that I agree with every choice Jon made.

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Jun 7, 2017Updates and bug fixes OTW.

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Jun 7, 2017Updates and bug fixes OTW.

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